In today’s digital workspace it’s all about collaboration, integration, user management, which is something that Google took into account with its most recent update to Google Groups.

The New Google Groups

Over the last few months Google has been removing or adding to its products to make them more efficient and user friendly. The most recent addition to this list is Google Groups, the company’s mailing list and contact grouping service that will now be more collaborative.

With the new Google Groups, users have the ability to create a group inbox where one user can assign tasks to other members and follow the task's progress and updates.

Along with this inbox feature, Falor notes that there are also new moderation tools, such as canned responses for forums and streamlined options for post moderation.

A Relevance Issue

Google Groups was originally launched as Deja News Research Service in 1995 to archive discussion group messages from Usenet. It was bought by Google in 2001 and incorporated into Google Groups. Even though Google Groups is older and isn't always the company's primary focus, many writers have approved of this update.

Google Groups has been around for many years and is not a product that Google makes announcements about very often,” wrote Chris Crum. “Users will no doubt be happy to see that Google still cares about the product, considering the coming shut-down of Google Reader, another popular product that Google rarely added features to.”

Others have wondered if the service should have been removed along with others tools during the company’s annual spring cleaning event.

I recall using it years ago after it got custody of the old Usenet archives but haven't tried it since. Google has been killing off many of its other services … claiming that not enough people use them,” wrote Lance Whitney. “ Does anyone out there still use Google Groups?”

SMG/CMSWire is a leading, native digital publication produced by Simpler Media Group, Inc. We provide articles, research and events for sophisticated professionals driving digital customer experience strategy, evolving the digital workplace and creating intelligent information management practices. The CMSWire team produces 400+ authoritative articles per quarter for our 2.7 million community members. Join us as a subscriber.